The Canal House

by Mark Lee

  I could have said, Thank you very much, but I’m taking the train. It would have been easy to give up the momentary comfort and to deflect Richard’s world. But at that moment I wanted to get into someone’s car and have him handle everything. My weariness and Billy’s air of authority were a potent combination. I smoothed back my hair and handed Billy my bag as he led me out of the terminal to a Mercedes-Benz. A black plastic container was in the backseat.

  “What’s this, Billy?”

  “Hot towel. Mr. Seaton likes them after a long flight.”

  I unscrewed the top and found a moist towel, scented with lemon. I ran the towel across my face, amazed at how wonderful it felt.

  “Just drop it on the floor when you’re done,” Billy told me. “Someone will pick it up.” Aside from that, Billy didn’t say anything. He drove me to Laura’s flat. Richard, he said, would call in a few days.

  Laura suggested I buy a new dress and get my hair cut. I was tempted at first, but resisted. “This is a professional relationship,” I said again. “We spend all our time talking about relief work.”

  “He’s going to be sitting across the table from you, Julia. You might as well look attractive.” She stared at my forehead; I’d hacked off my bangs with some surgical scissors when a lock of hair kept falling in my eyes.

  “I don’t like dressing up for people.”

  “Then dress up for yourself. You’re in London, not in some awful war zone.”

  In the end, I did get my hair cut, then bought some heels and a cashmere sweater. Laura said I looked good, but when Richard showed up a day later and took me to a restaurant, he talked entirely about Hand-to-Hand. When he dropped me off, he got out of the car and shook my hand at the door. I tried to act as if that was all I’d expected, but I did start to wonder what exactly we were doing. “Take care of yourself,” he said. I studied his face; it was friendly, not passionate. “The British aid coordinator in Freetown says you take a lot of risks.”

  And he doesn’t take enough of them, I thought. I was halfway up the stairs to Laura’s flat when I realized that Richard or one of his employees must have called Sierra Leone while I was there to make sure that I was all right. I was in Richard’s thoughts, touching him in a distant sort of way.

  In my twenties, I’d believed that anyone doing relief work had to be a better person than a rich man who owned a bank. These days I knew the international aid world and could see it clearly. Most of the top UN people were career builders, oblivious to the people they were supposed to be serving. They spent their time in guarded compounds, faxing off memos and adding up their mission allowance. The British soldiers training the army were professionals who had worked all over the world, but over and over I’d met aid workers who were there because of a failure back in their own country. In Freetown, no one would know about their bankruptcy or recent divorce. They drove down the crowded streets in their air-conditioned Land Rovers and complained about the Africans during Friday night drinking hour at the British High Commission. I’d met two saints in Sierra Leone: a Dutch doctor who worked near the border and a French woman who had started a program to provide prosthetics for people mutilated by the war. But saints, real saints, were quirky, difficult people, indifferent to anything aside from their calling. I wasn’t a saint. It was much too lonely.

  When I returned to England, I expected Billy to be waiting for me at the airport, and I guess that was the turning point. I stayed with Laura but went out with Richard every night I was in London. It was just so pleasant to be in his world. When we saw a play together, the playwright would join us for drinks afterward. When we went to a restaurant, the chef would come out to recommend a special dish. Once, I mentioned a book I had read about in the Times and the novel was delivered to Laura’s flat the following afternoon. On the title page the author had signed his name and written For Julia, who has good friends.

  That week a photograph of Richard and me appeared in one of the London tabloids. We had just attended a fund-raising dinner where an aging rock star played his guitar. The news photographer caught us walking out of hotel. I have a silly grin on my face and look startled by the flash of the camera. Richard is right beside me, raising his hand like a policeman as if to protect me from the intrusion. When I saw the photograph I thought, This isn’t me. The grainy black-and-white image didn’t match the vision I had of myself. No one would allow the woman in the photograph to deliver a baby or remove a bullet from someone’s chest. Invite her to dinner, of course, but keep her away from scalpels and forceps.

  Laura was always awake when I came home. “Did you sleep with him this time?”

  “No.”

  “Did he kiss you? Put his hand on your leg? Anything like that?”

  “Not at all. It isn’t that way.”

  “It’s always that way. Eventually.”

  “We’re not wildly emotional with each other and I like that. Things are emotional enough at the hospital.”

  One night after dinner, Richard finally kissed me. A delivery truck was parked in the middle of the street, so Billy stopped the car at the corner and Richard walked me down the sidewalk to Laura’s flat. He took my hand which startled me. Richard had only touched me a few times, guiding me through a crowded restaurant or helping me with my coat. When we reached the door, he stopped and pulled me closer. I knew that he had decided to kiss me; perhaps he had been considering it for several days.

  The kiss itself was firm and precise, without a hint of doubt. When it was done, he squeezed my hand and let go. “I admire you, Julia. You’re very important to me.”

  The excitement of the kiss, the giddiness of it, came afterward as I climbed upstairs to the first floor. The next morning, two dozen roses arrived and Billy called to ask if I would accompany Mr. Seaton to a weekend party at his friend’s estate in Kent. I flew off to Freetown, and when I returned I found Laura in the living room surrounded by open packages.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “It’s all clothes, from Richard, for that party you’re going to. I inspected the first package, then I had to look at everything.”

  Richard or Billy or some employee at the Riverside Bank had discovered my shoe and clothing sizes. There were wool pants for hiking through the forest, sweaters, shirts, and a little black dress for a cocktail party. I called up Richard that night while Laura rolled her eyes in the background.

  “Do they fit?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m sure they do, but it’s too much,” I said. “I don’t feel comfortable being given all these things. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. I know you don’t have time to shop.”

  “I’m keeping the dress, but I’m sending the rest back.”

  The weekend in Kent turned out to be a political gathering. Our host was a cabinet minister and most of the other guests were connected to the government. They gossiped about who was up or down and talked about Public Opinion as if it were a simpleminded giant who needed to be coaxed down the right road. Two experts from London were there to give lectures on monetary policy, with slides. I nodded and smiled and spent most of my time with the wives, more intelligent but less powerful than their husbands. On the second day they began to tell me about Richard’s former girlfriends, who all seemed to be actresses or television personalities. “They weren’t suitable,” said one of the wives. “Not like you, dear.”

  Richard looked happy as we traveled back to London. “Let’s go to my place,” he said and Billy glanced up in the rearview mirror just to confirm the statement. Richard put his arm around me. “Is that all right with you, darling?”

  “Yes,” I said and leaned into him.

  It was very late when we reached Richard’s house in Highgate and he led me upstairs to his bedroom. A coal and wood fire was burning in the fireplace and it felt magical that everything had been planned for us, that someone was anticipating our needs. Richard looked nervous after he closed the door. He circled the perimeter of the room. “Is it warm enough, Juli
a?”

  “Quite warm.”

  “Would you like some music? A little more light?”

  “Wait here,” I said, and when I came out of the bathroom Richard was in bed.

  I can’t remember much about what it was like to make love to Richard though later it felt as if we had accomplished something. We were together now. We were lovers. In the dim light I could see Richard’s pale eyes evaluating me as we lay there without speaking. The fire had burned down to dark red coals. A mantelpiece clock ticked softly but never chimed the hour.

  “Do you want a drink, Julia?”

  “No. Not now.”

  “Or some food? It’s no trouble, really. There’s a man downstairs, on duty.”

  “I’m all right.”

  He put on a bathrobe, then sat beside me on the bed. “Those people in Kent liked you. Everyone thought you were very impressive.”

  “They’re somewhat deluded,” I said and laughed. “All that political talk made me sleepy.”

  Neither one of us mentioned love, but I decided that didn’t bother me. My emotional life had always been haphazard and foolish. My past relationships had been flimsy little sailboats that could never withstand a longer voyage on deep water. Now that I was with Richard, my life felt easier. We were going to be partners, working together toward the same goal.

  The next morning Richard told me that he had to eat breakfast with some American bankers. “The house is yours,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. Order some tea.”

  He kissed me lightly as he left the room. I lay in the Queen Anne bed, warm and relaxed beneath the silk coverlet. Frost was on the outer windows, but flowers were in a vase on the night table and I could smell the faint, sweet fragrance of jasmine. I felt protected at that moment, safe. I realized that I didn’t quite know where the frayed blue toothbrush was at that moment, but there was a new one waiting for me in the bathroom. When I got dressed and went downstairs, Billy Monroe appeared in the dining room. He said good morning and, for the first time, called me Julia.

  • • •

  AFTER THE CAMP was organized, Richard flew to Nairobi and took a charter plane to Kosana. I couldn’t image how he would react to the dust and the sick children and the black flies buzzing around the tents, but he was friendly with everyone and he even tried to learn a few phrases of Swahili. Erik Viltner had brought two coolers filled with ice, so we had fresh meat and cold beer for dinner. Richard and I shared the same tent and he noticed the Gucci case. Before he arrived, I had dug a little hole in the ground to pour out some of the shampoo and half of the makeup.

  Richard zipped open the case, inspected the little bottles, and smiled. “So you actually used this.”

  “Yes. Although not all the makeup. It has been very busy here.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll have my staff send some refills from London.”

  A few days later, Paul Rosen’s airplane roared over the camp. Paul had called on the radio a day earlier and said that he was flying up from Kampala with a connector valve for the broken water pump. I left the medical tent and walked to the landing strip. Paul and Tobias got out of the plane, followed by two other men. I could tell that they were journalists. The photographer was short, plump, and sweaty. He raised his camera and took a few photographs like someone who had once worked in a war zone; the photographers I knew in Bosnia had always gotten a quick shot the moment they arrived in case they had to jump back in the car and flee. The reporter was tall and had unruly hair. He was wearing sunglasses and I couldn’t see his eyes, but I noticed how calm he was, not smiling nervously the way most people acted when they first came to a refugee camp.

  As I approached the plane, the photographer took two pictures of me, which I still have. The first is from a distance and all you can see is that I’m a woman with a sun hat surrounded by a half-dozen Karamojong children. A casual observer might decide that the children adored me, but of course that wasn’t true. There was very little to do in the camp and I was like a walking television show, a never-ending source of amusement. Billy carried an Uzi submachine gun and had an even larger group of children following him around.

  In the second photograph, you can see that I’m frowning slightly. I liked Paul and Tobias, but I’ve always been cautious around journalists. Most of them only spend a few hours in a relief camp, then trivialize our work into little vignettes of brave doctors and sick babies. If you were tired and said something emotional, they smiled and wrote it all down. Later, if I was unlucky enough to read the article, they usually got the facts wrong. It was better not to tell them much of anything.

  Paul and Tobias had started to give out candy to keep people away from the airplane propeller. It had become a popular ritual during their visits to the camp. Tobias pulled some lemon drops out of a paper bag and began to toss them to the children. They laughed and held up their hands.

  “Good afternoon, Julia,” Paul said. “You look quite wonderful today.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to say that to Ellen?”

  Tobias laughed. “He’s practicing his lines.”

  Paul reached into his flight bag and pulled out a brass-and-steel fixture about the size of a child’s hand. “Some men give women chocolates. Others give roses. I bring more sophisticated presents.”

  “How thoughtful of you, Paul. I’ve always loved connector valves.”

  Paul turned to the journalists. “This is Nicky Bettencourt and Daniel McFarland. They work for Newsweek and the Daily Telegraph.”

  I shook hands. “Welcome to Kosana.”

  “This is a fairly large camp,” Daniel said. “How long have you been here?”

  “About three months.”

  “There was nothing in this area until Julia arrived with her trucks,” Tobias said. “She organized everything.”

  “I’m fortunate to have a very good staff.”

  “Especially the nurses,” Paul said. “Is Ellen around?”

  “Ellen is sterilizing instruments right now. You can’t take her flying. Not today. I need her for inoculations.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll just say hello.”

  Paul and Tobias wandered off together while I was left with the two visitors. I decided to pass them off to Richard. “I assume you’re here to interview Mr. Seaton,” I said. “He’s probably over in the staff tent.”

  “We can meet Mr. Seaton later on today,” Daniel said. “Right now, we’re looking for people who’ve had contact with the Lord’s Righteous Army.”

  “You’re writing an article about Samuel Okello?”

  “That’s right. Has anyone in the camp ever met him?”

  “Most of the people here are Karamojong, but we’re also sheltering thirty-one persons from the Acholi tribe who had to flee when Okello burned down their villages.”

  “Can we talk to them?”

  Three Karamojong children stood a few feet away, staring at us and sucking blissfully on their lemon drops. “I don’t suppose it would do any harm,” I said. “We put the Acholi families in five tents next to each other. They’re all farmers. Fairly conservative. They don’t like the Karamojong.”

  It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. The Karamojong women were boiling the day’s cornmeal over fires made of twigs and thorn-bush. The Karamojong men stood separately, staring at the horizon. More children followed us as I led the two Americans through the rows of tents.

  Nicky raised his camera and took a few more photographs. I knew that he was looking for dramatic shots, but the images couldn’t show what was really going on at Kosana. A news photo of a hungry child drinking a cup of milk wouldn’t tell you who was giving out the food, where the money came from and if there was going to be any food three days later.

  I walked them over to the tents where the Acholi farmers were living. All of them had seen their homes destroyed by the Lord’s Righteous Army, and they looked dazed and fragile, as if they had been in a car wreck. I explained that these two men were journalists working for an American magazin
e. The Acholis were shy at first, but then they began to tell their stories, how the guerrillas had killed their families, burned their crops and their houses. And though I knew all this, it was painful to hear it again. Daniel wrote down their names in his notebook. “Did you ever see Samuel Okello?” he asked, and everyone shook their heads.

  Daniel took off his sunglasses and I watched his face as he talked to the people in the tent. There was an intensity about him, an ability to ignore the confusion, which reminded me of a trained physician in an emergency room. I couldn’t help noticing that he was attractive in a rangy sort of way. But something about him made me nervous. I had the feeling that he always held back, his true emotions protected and concealed—the same qualities I most disliked in myself.

  Daniel closed his notebook and we went into the second tent. I had moved Isaac, a ten-year-old orphan, into this group, hoping that he would form an attachment with one of the four women there, but Isaac was so troubled that the other Acholis refused to talk to him. Now he’d taken his blanket and draped it over a length of string, creating his own private shelter. I had a broken water pump and a shortage of tents and four new cases of tuberculosis, but I all I could think about was Isaac. I had failed to help him.

  I knelt down beside the little tent and pushed back the folds of the blanket. “Hello. How are you feeling, Isaac?”

  He didn’t answer, but he crawled out of the tent. Isaac wore shorts and a torn T-shirt and carried his most valuable possessions: pink flip-flop sandals. At first, he had reminded me of a little old man. Then I looked into his eyes and saw nothing; they were as flat and expressionless as two brown stones. Isaac had seen his parents killed and it was quite possible that he’d been forced to pull the trigger.

  “We just got a shipment of oranges and we’re giving one to every child in the camp at five o’clock. Do you like oranges, Isaac? I’ll save the biggest one for you.”

  Isaac considered the oranges for a few seconds, then crawled back into his tent. I turned away from Nicky and Daniel so they wouldn’t see the expression on my face.